Title says it all :-D The cut out I did yesterday was bigger than anticipated and the 8 frame box they are in is packed and a couple of good handfulls of bees spent the night bearding outside.Unfortunately all my bee gear is out at our farm 2.5 hours away so If anyone can help me out that would be great. Northern suburbs preferred, but I can travel.If not, no problem, it's off to bunnings for some timber and I'll build a shim.Cheers.Paul.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

I ended up building a box out of timber from bunnings to sit on top of the brood box.Hopefully this will provide a bit more incentive for them to head inside tonight. If not Ill make a nuc as you say Oz, I honestly didn't think of that, I have 2 nuc sized swarm traps out in the garage and 4 frames with foundation so if they are still hanging out front tomorrow Ill give that a go.They will only be staying here a couple of days anyway, Ill take them out to our farm Thursday or Friday, Just worried about them absconding in the mean time.They are currently bearding below the entrance to the hive. The hive is about 2 meters up on a shade structure above our dining room window. I keep hives up there when they are here as we have a small yard and nosey dogs :-DHere is a picture looking up through the window to the shade structure:

Certainly looks like you have a good amount of bees in there! I'm pretty confident based on what you explained in your other post that you have the queen. If you didn't at 8:45 last night the majority of bees would have been where she was! If you use separate bases to your box you can always put an excluder between the base and the box to prevent the queen leaving...

Is seems that ll is good this morning and the extra space on top of the brood box has done the trick. No more bearding below the hive and normal activity out the front. I am going to leave them be until I move them to their permanent home late this week.Thanks everyone for their help and suggestions.Cheers.Paul.